Just checking whether I should be worried or not. DS now finishing Y9 had a very relaxed approached studying for his end of year exams with the obvious consequence of not performing very well indeed. He simply did not revised at all for the subjects he will not carry on doing in y10 and did not bother doing the maths practice papers he was given by his school. Now, is this "normal" or common for boys in particular, and will he pick up next year with the pressure of GCSEs looming, or should I read more into this and ban all devices for the next 4 years? I will be meeting his form tutor hopefully next week to discuss this further, but was hoping to hear from parents who had experienced the same thing. Any suggestions to keep the motivation high welcome.

I have one conscientious child and one who is much more relaxed - our school has a robust approach to the exams at the end of y8 (where they have chosen their gcse subjects) and insists if you do badly you resit - even if you are not taking it on further!

My relaxed child has slowly increased his revision. He did nothing Y7, a week before y8, about the same for y9 and a casual month for y10. He is lucky in that he has a good memory so has done very well in all of them (which hasn’t helped me telling him he needs to work harder!!)

But, his general attitude has changed - and it came from him - he works harder all day - he has done his homework without me judging him - his teachers tell me if he misses a lesson he comes to them to catch up...he worked harder on his exams at a point where they were full GCSE papers, marked to true grade boundaries - he took them seriously.

But it came from him.

Your son has to make that jump himself. I have never banned screens etc - we have a no PlayStation rule during the week and a homework comes first rule but it doesn’t always work. But he knows he takes the consequences.

They have to learn it for themselves - if they rely on you to police their screens, how will they cope at A level, at degree, in the workplace. Children have to take ownership of their learning - when they do that they do better. You may find that doing badly will give him the kick he needs. Boys by nature are competitive and want to do as well or better than their peers. Be ready to offer alternative revision techniques, buy flash cards etc for him to make, as sometimes boys don’t really know how to revise effectively.

1 word - relax.


And a couple more - it is nothing to do with gender stereotypes at all; and Y9 is not teachers' least favourite year (OK I generalise) for nothing.

Relax. Seriously.

Perfectly normal

Given what some of DDs teachers said in year 9 it’s definitely not a *boy* thing, just a thing (she is at a girls’ school).
Apparently a number of girls had sort of given up, particularly in subjects they wouldn’t be tested on at the end of the year and subject they weren’t taking to gcse. It putting effort into homework etc. In fact they don’t even have proper ‘end of year’ exams for 9 iirc. They test them earlier on in the year. When the other years are having exams, they go off on their residential trip instead.

I also wouldn’t go the whole hog and ban screens/phones etc. It will probably cause more problems than it solves and it won’t help them learn to self regulate.

Good. Email from school also reassuring that it is indeed a trend in year 9...pretty stressful though. I like the idea of scrapping exams altogether in year 9

Until 2008 students in Year 9 had to take national KS3 tests in English, Maths and Science.

And before 1995 students did not take any exams at all in Y9. Which was also known as the third year before then, in the same way as we used terms like 'second year infants' and 'first year juniors'. I quite liked that.

They did Amber, I remember marking tests in the early 1990s - they were national tests but marked by schools. It was not for my own class [I only taught Year 10 upwards] but for another teacher who was ill.

I have DS in year 11 and Dd year 9.
In fact my DDs school ( it’s a grammar) didn’t even do proper end of year exams in year 9 on the basis that they don’t feel its necessary.
They did them in years 7 and 8.
She has had the usual end of term assessments.
Not much work done other than for maths as she is hoping to do further maths GCSE and the mark will determine if that’s possible.
My DS worked absolutely minimally in year 9. Results very mediocre.
Did a bit more in year 10.
Mocks were Nov year 11 and a bit of work done.
In Feb of this year he seemed to have an epiphany ( nothing whatsoever to do with me).
Deleted all social media.Got rid of the PlayStation and worked really,really hard for three months.
One day off at Easter and one at half term.
He sorted it all out himself.
Took breaks for excercise and the odd meal out but that was it.
Our rules over the years have been pretty relaxed I think.
No phones in bedrooms at night but not much else.
Even though the exams are over he leaves his phone in the kitchen.
I don’t think this dip requires much more than a bit of gentle guidance at this stage.
I did get my son a couple of books on revision skills and using time efficiently which I thought were useful.
I do ask my two to read their summer reports the day before the autumn term to help them remember their learning targets.